


Lana

by deepandlovelydark



Series: That Deep Romantic Chasm, or Journey to the Center of the Neath [6]
Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar, MacGyver (TV 1985), Sunless Sea
Genre: Domestic Adventures, Engineering, Fluff, Gen, Humor, general Neathy weirdness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2018-12-30 12:39:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12108921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepandlovelydark/pseuds/deepandlovelydark
Summary: So, what happens when a troubleshooter’s niece moves to the Neath to be with him? Terror? Cannibalism? Madness?…fluff. Lots and lots of fluff.





	1. Keeping Vigil

**Author's Note:**

> Lana is Latin for fleece. 
> 
> For while FL keeps a wonderful balance between horror and humour, there are certain stories which it strikes me as hilarious to make unreasonably fluffy…so I'll be putting those ficlets here. Enjoy.
> 
> Copyright items: Fallen London is © 2015 and ™ Failbetter Games Limited: www.fallenlondon.com. This is an unofficial fan work. MacGyver is copyright either Paramount or Lee David Zlotoff, depending. Certainly not mine.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Innocent Spy's picked up this bad habit of accidental Seeking. 
> 
> The Sensible Bookworm has developed a few tricks for handling this.

_A tisket, a tasket, a red and yellow basket…_

Actually, it’s a violant-cosmogone bucket, designed for transporting memories of light rather than the groceries she's put in it, but hey. Close enough. 

Her marketing’s gone well today. Fresh mushroom flour, cheese from the Bonsworths, a couple of precious chicken eggs brought down here by refrigerated merchant vessel. These always have to be imported; any chickens living in the Neath have a way of spontaneously evolving into rude -and unproductive - mynah birds. Not for the first time, the Sensible Bookworm wonders what a proper biology textbook of the Neath would look like. Something exceedingly strange, no doubt. 

Her Uncle Mac is still asleep on the sofa, with the antimacassar pulled down about him like a blanket. (If nothing else, coming to the Neath has certainly been good for her vocabulary.) Another late night of engineering taking its toll. He’s been trying to grind a bejewelled lens by hand, and apparently that’s quite a complicated proposition. 

She tucks a silk-hemmed quilt over him and sets to work. Wiping off the sphinxstone countertop, laying out the flour in a well, then cracking the eggs into it. The colour of the brindled orange yolks (much the same shade as her bucket) reminds her of a late-summer sunset. That’s a nice idea. 

_Hold on to thoughts like that. Just because you’re down here now, don’t forget where you came from. Somewhere with plenty of warmth, and rain, and real light._

A spirifer’s fork, confiscated from a devil who was trying to take an Urchin’s soul, does very well for stirring the pasta dough until it’s time to start kneading. It’s a great way to work off her frustrations, pushing hard at the tough, springy ball again and again. 

Once for that devil…and once for the red honey-vendors, selling torments for entertainment…and once for that Mayor, who seems to have nothing better to do than make people fight duels at his palace…

There’s a lot of injustice in Fallen London. The two of them can only do so much. 

By the time the dough’s relaxed and ready to rest, so’s she - but a quick little moan from the sofa attracts her attention. He always did have trouble with nightmares, even back on the Surface. Down here, where people will sometimes swap dozens of secrets for a single good night’s rest, the problem’s really only gotten worse.

(The local clergyman she’d asked for help had recommended hot wine. Wine, or lots and lots of laudanum. Which, well….neither of those solutions had sounded much like her Uncle Mac.)

So instead Becky keeps vigil, and wakes him whenever his sleep becomes troubled. Like now; she lays a gentle hand on his shoulder, watches with satisfaction as his eyes open and the trouble goes out of his face. 

“Dreaming again, huh?”

“Yeah. Death by water. And heights. Not a great combination.” His stomach gives a peculiar growl. “Think I woke up hungry.”

“I had a hunch. Dinner in about an hour-”

“No, I mean - not just the regular kind of hungry. Peckish.“ 

“-like I said, I had a hunch. So I dropped by the Labyrinth on the way back, this should tide you over while the pasta’s resting.” She pulls a package of fried Rubbery Lumps (still piping hot, and seasoned with plenty of zee-salt) from her bucket and passes it over. 

“Thanks,” he says, tearing the newspaper wrappings open and digging in gratefully. “How’d you know?”

“Oh, dunno. How long’s it been since your last time Seeking, all of three weeks? It worries me, you know.” It isn’t safe to be hungry in the Neath. There isn’t much in London that can actually kill people these days, at least not permanently, but some fates down here are a lot scarier than plain ordinary dying. 

He takes a moment out from determined chewing (Lumps tend to be - well, rubbery) to sigh. “Keeps catching me out when I’m not expecting it. Someone out there, calling for help every night, and I can’t help them. Or rather, I could. But I won’t.”

“Why not?” She tosses a shovelful of coal on the fire and grabs another blanket before snuggling down on the sofa. Too cold tonight, but then the Neath always is. 

_And to think I used to call Minnesota too wintery..._

“Well, Seekers have to give up everything, and I mean everything. I could cope with losing the lodgings, I could deal with losing all my renown in London - actually, that could be advantageous, for a spy. But I couldn’t take you North with me. And there’s definitely no way I’m leaving you behind, that’s a sacrifice too far.” 

“Maybe we could both go and save - whatever it is? The space ghost?”

He looks at her quizzically. “Sweetie, it’s a nightmare-fueled ex-Master with a really bad habit of encouraging cannibalism. I’m not sure you’re getting this.”

“Maybe it’s just lonely. Maybe it needs more friends. Maybe what it needs to move on is seeing two Seekers who want to help it but who won’t give up on each other, no matter what.”

Chivalrously, he offers her the last Lump; she refuses with a little wave. “Now that sounds like my favourite niece, all right. You’ll never stop looking for the best in people, will you?”

“Course not. A favourite uncle of mine taught me that.”

“But I’m still not going North. Guess you’ll just have to put up with me a while longer, huh?”

“And a good thing, too. Who’d help me roll out my pasta otherwise? Or get the stuff I can’t reach on the top shelf?”

His eyes twinkle in the firelight. “Hey. You forgot about getting me to help look after your aquarium of Cheerful Goldfish...“

The Bookworm grins. No matter what kind of craziness they get into (there was a lot of that even back on the Surface), they always manage to build some kind of normalcy out of the chaos. Always.

So okay, the mac n' cheese will be made out of fungi. And they’re about as far away from the Pacific coast as it’s possible to get. And she found an eye-eating spider in the bath this morning.

But right now they're together and safe, and isn't that all that really matters?


	2. The Bazaar Sidestreets

London fashions have decayed, ever since the Fall, but the proprieties still call for some variety of headgear whenever a gentleman is escorting his young ward on a Sunday outing. Oddly enough, social standings hold no sway in this regard; whether the trip is for opera at the Empress’s Court, or robbing a dirty cookshop in Spite, hats remain hats. 

The Innocent doesn't much care about offending London fashion, but he has become awfully fond of his Iron Hat (a hard-hat in the shape of an elegant accoutrement. Softly padded inside, of course.) He fetches the pliers to straighten a small bend in its brim. 

“So, it’s your turn to pick our destination. Where are we going this time?” 

The Bookworm grins. “Shopping! The Ambitious Barrister gave me a pass for south of the river, now that I’m a posy. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?”

“We’re fifty years early, miles underground, in another country. And you’ve still managed to find a shopping mall. How do you do it?”

“Aw. You're not jealous that I found out about the Bazaar first, are you?” It’s not easy to become a Person of Some Importance; her uncle still isn’t one. 

“Course not. I’m too busy spying to want to be a notable personage…and besides, the adjective would be ‘proud’. Proud of you trying out things I haven’t. Proud of you for just being you, Becky.” He tweaks the tilt of her Judgemental Hat, which rouses itself from slumber long enough to bite him. Fortunately cloth teeth are incapable of cutting. "Purse at the ready, I take it."

"One actual purse on a chain, to hold my echoes. One cheap spider-silk purse, in case we're waylaid by footpads. And it’s full of fungal sweets, if an Urchin pickpockets it on the way. Peppermint flavour."

"Good girl. Always be prepared."

************

The first stop is to Blackfinger Street, the finest bookseller’s market in the Neath. Of course. The otherwise Sensible one is brought to sheer sensibility at the sight of so many fabulous tomes. 

"Look at this one," she murmurs, pulling the Innocent away from his perusal of _The Care and Maintenance of Your Mechanical Mouse Organ_. "A first printing of Fludd, if I'm not mistaken- do you know how much this would cost on the Surface?"

"Take it off my hands, with my blessing," the Esteemed Bookseller calls. "Already had it brought back three times. Paid me more to take it back than they'd given me in the first place, bless 'em. Drives people proper paving, it does."

"Then why would she want it?" the Innocent says warily. Someone has to ask, and the potential buyer is too busy burying her nose in old lignin-scented pages. 

"Cos it's full of mad secret histories, Unc," the Bookworm says, as though this were obvious. “I’ve been wanting a copy of this for ages. An account of the Hours, and the Knows..."

The Innocent leans in, puts a protective arm about his niece as he addresses the tome. "Better not do anything unpleasant to her, Mr Book. I'd hate to get rough, but I will if I have to. Shelve you with the cookbooks or something."

The Bookseller chuckles indulgently. What a sweet homely scene. Charming family moment. 

He stops when ink starts dripping off the pages, onto the floor of the shop. This sort of thing never happened back in Birmingham. 

"Aw, you're making him cry," the Bookworm says indignantly. "Be nice. Tell him you didn't mean it."

"Okay! Okay. I promise I won't do anything like that. You two just be nice to each other, all right?”

Pages rustle. 

"That means yes. So now we can do the proper introductions. I'm the Sensible Bookworm, this is my uncle the Innocent Spy. Uncle, this is -“ flip flip flip- “the _Utriusque Cosmi, Maioris scilicet et Minoris, metaphysica, physica, atque technica Historia_ …” 

She's still at it even once they've paid and left the shop. 

The Esteemed Bookseller sighs. Inkstains are murder to get out of mushroom matting. 

*******************

By contrast, the jewelry shop is a little...wholesale. 

"I mean, okay, it's great that I can buy forty-five diamonds at once, but can't I have them in a bracelet? Or a necklace? Something?”

"We give you a bag, don't we?" the Underpaid Attendant pleads. "If you wanted a tiara or something fancy like that, you should have ordered it by post, like everyone else does.”

The Bookworm rolls her eyes. Mail-order purchase wasn’t what she had in mind for today, as convenient and improbable as it is in London. (Rumour insists that the hardworking postal workers of London had, after a madman had experimentally ordered a hundred thousand rats for special delivery, brought the last squeaking package to his house a mere twenty minutes later. Not that there was very much house left afterwards, once the mountain of rodents collapsed on top of it.)

"What about moon-pearls? Can I have a string of moon-pearls?"

"Certainly not," the now-Scandalized Attendant says, quite on their dignity. "Moon-pearls, indeed! We don't deal in shoddy, minor truck like that.“

"So if you don't do real jewelry, and you don't sell cheap jewels, what do you sell? The strictly mediocre?"

"...yes. Afraid so." 

"Oh, I wouldn't put yourself down like that," the Innocent says, lugging over a tub of sapphires. "These'll be perfect for LEDs. All I have to do is rig up a decent generator and we'll have real electric lighting again."

"Something like what they have in the Khanate, I suppose?” The Attendant is dubious. 

"Something like that. And they’re blue, like the Pacific on a cloudless day...is it that shade of blue? I'm not sure, anymore.”

The Bookworm looks them over. At first, she isn't certain either - they've been here long enough for the Underzee's black to seem normal now, and she hadn’t been observing that carefully the last time they’d gone on one of those pre-dawn fishing trips. But the sight of the Innocent turning over the jewels, with a melancholic trouble in his eyes (she’s never had any trouble reading him, no matter how reserved his expression), makes her sure. 

"Definitely. Exactly that shade." 

**********

Then a stop at the Great Downward Engineering Company, where the Bookworm practically has to drag her uncle away from the humming workshops. Checking noticeboards at the Society for the Preservation of Respectable Carriages, which arranges for the exchange of landaus between owners of sufficient station. The Innocent recognises a few names from his professional duties, and jots down a few notes to call in favours. The local habit of going everywhere in London on foot is healthy, of course, but for all Becky’s enthusiasm, he can tell she’s beginning to flag. If she’s going to be visiting the Bazaar more often now, it’d be nice if she didn’t have to walk the whole way here. 

They stop for dinner at the Bridge Without, jam-packed and cheerful. Drinks are overpriced, but as neither of them indulge, that’s hardly a problem. The food’s not very much better, but even this place can’t get mushroom broth far wrong. 

“Too bad we didn’t find a pet store,” the Bookworm says. “I was hoping to find a replacement for my Starveling Cat.” 

The Innocent grimaces. “But it snarled at everyone. Plus it went after your fish the minute your back was turned. Plus that time it went and ate all my socks…”

“And the Urchin who was asking around for one seemed so happy when I offered mine. But I miss him, and- you know what, I’m obsessing about this. I’d swear I just heard a meow.”

“A meow. In this racket?”

“Yeah, it was just like - that’s it. That’s you! Why are you meowing?“

Sheepishly, the Innocent pulls out a tiny woven basket from his inner coat pocket, with an even tinier kitten curled up inside it. “I was worried he might catch cold before we got home. Been on the waiting list for a week now, even since you gave away yours, and the Urchin delivery-boy caught up with me while you were looking in at the Horse-Steak Club.”

“Oh, he’s perfect,” she whispers, tousling the blue-grey fur with the tip of a finger. The kitten bats a playful paw at it. “The loveliest cat I’ve ever seen. And what’s this mirror?”

“Well, he’s not just any breed of cat. Parabolan Panthers will always be kittens here, but in the mirror -“ he tilts a small compact at the kitten, revealing an amber-touched dream creature - “they’ll grow up to be panthers one day. Though this one’s only a cub either way.” 

“Then maybe I’ll call him Specchio. That’s Italian for mirror, isn’t it?”

“Huh, you tell me. My Italian’s a little rusty.”

“It is,” the Bookworm says firmly. “Specchio the kitten, you are going to have such a lot of cuddles in your future.”

They nestle close together, hands interlocked so that they can both hold the minute creature. The kitten yawns and promptly goes to sleep. 

“Uh, I don’t know how we’re going to move now. Without disturbing him.”

“Well, I’m in no hurry to go anywhere. Everything I want is right here…”

Inside of five minutes she’s asleep too. It’s a bit of a balancing act, holding one niece and one cat without waking either up, but he manages somehow. 

“I think she had the right of that,” he tells the kitten. "Everything I want is here, too." 

************

The Bridge Without is a hectic, docker-haunted, overcrowded hole where assassins are bought as easily as wine, and bar-fights fly freely. But this night, none of that happens; the cellars go unsold, no one sidles up to the bartender to inquire about purchasing the use of villains.

Of course, it would be sentimental to attribute this fall-off in business to the innocently sleeping trio in the corner.

Of course it would.


	3. Neither Feast nor Fowl

Drip. Drip. Drip. 

Gingerly, the Innocent Spy pokes at his damp present with the business end of a poker. It shudders greasily, tipping over with all the grace of a decaying cake. 

“C’mon, Unc, you know I wouldn’t have given you anything really dangerous,” the Sensible Bookworm calls, watching from her cosy hearthside corner with much amusement. “Or are you trying to figure out what it is before you open it?”

“Of course I’m trying to figure out what it is first, I always do. Have to admit, this one’s stumped me. What’s in there that I’d even want?”

“Open it and find out.”

“Not until I’ve had a good whack at it. Last time I had this much trouble was when you and Jack teamed up to give me that marzipan airplane for Christmas…you haven’t given me a marzipan airplane again, have you? No. It’d smell more almondy.”

She shrugs and turns her attention to the package in her lap. The Sensible Bookworm quite enjoys cat boxes; she’s hoping to get a Matriarch of her own someday. So far it’s only been loners (though helpfully gossipy loners) and the occasional Starveling Cat. Who are in another category altogether. 

Yet a gift like this seems uncharacteristically…ordinary. Their double-birthday celebration was always something special, back on the Surface. Down here, getting gifted with a cat that may or may not try to tear you into shreds once you’ve freed it is just another Tuesday. 

Maybe he’s planning another surprise afterwards? She opens the box. 

Well. It’s a cat, all right. 

“Meow,” the Pink-Painted Cat says ungraciously. 

She has an aquarium with a Haunted Goldfish in it, and a Slavering Dream-Hound that likes to eat fungal crackers, and a Bifurcated Owl, for Stone’s sake, and she’s still never seen a weirder-looking animal than this. It gazes up at her with deep disgust. 

“Meow,” it says again, licks one paw, and grimaces at the taste of itself. 

“Uh…Uncle? What’s going on here?”

The Innocent takes a moment from studying his present (he’s moved on to the Semiotic Monocle now), to look slightly abashed. “Well, you’re always keeping an eye out for new pets, I thought another would be the perfect birthday present. And I ran into a Urchin gang that was rounding up strays and painting them bright pink to give away as Feast gifts, and…”

“And he bribed me with two hundred appalling secrets not to wash myself off before the holiday was over,” the Cat explains. “An excellent bargain for me, as the paint’s indelible.”

“You didn’t tell me that!” the Spy says indignantly. 

“Why should I, when you were sketching such a charmingly hospitable picture of your niece’s menagerie? Not that I belong in a menagerie,” the Cat adds. “My talents are wide-ranging. Have you another companion who will bite strangers for you on demand?”

“Um, yeah, several. The spider’s the worst.”

It looks disappointed. “One who will deliver coded messages with utmost discretion?”

“He’s pretty sulky about it, but my Bat’s very good at that.”

“One who will roll around on your hearthstone and paw the air adorably, like so?” It demonstrates with much panache. 

A certain Parabolan Kitten stalks over and gives it a Look. The Pink-Painted Cat hastily concedes the field. 

“Never mind, then. I can see when I’m not wanted.”

“Hang on, I never said that. Do you want to stay?”

“The market for pink-painted cats goes somewhat sour after the festival,” the Cat says sadly. “Ours are the fleeting joys of celebrity: petted and fondled for a fortnight, then risibly mocked afterwards. If you have any long-term interest in a personage of my distinctive hue, I shall be happy to remain.”

“Okay. Then that’s settled. I can always use another cat.”

“Especially seeing as you’re so thoughtful about providing snacks,” the Cat adds. 

The albino rat it’s staring at squeals, then scampers up the Bookworm’s chair. “You told me that you’d talk to all your cats before I arrived!”

“Sorry! Sorry, this is a new one, and I didn’t have time to brief ‘em yet. Unc, this is the Albino Tinkerer. He’s just emigrated from Pigmote, and I said I’d put in a good word for him. You should see what he can do with a Set of Intricate Kifers.”

“Usually known as Tobias, sir. At your disposal.”

The Innocent adopts a particularly blank expression, one which resembles simple bewilderment to the outside observer. To a niece’s well-trained eye, the message of “Uh, I’d really rather not,” is hope-dashingly clear.

“Mmm…not sure I need an assistant right now. Or ever, to be honest. I’ve always managed without one before.”

The Rat visibly droops. So does the Bookworm. 

“But tell you what, cos this has been bugging me all day. Figure out what’s inside this box here, without opening it, and I’ll hire you on the spot.”

The Tinkerer ventures over, delicately dips its tail into the package’s secretions and tastes it. “Butter. Probably zee-butter, churned from Beloved blubber.”

“Unc! That’s cheating!”

“Hey, you never said I couldn’t ask outside help. Good tip for the future, implicit rules don’t count.”

The Tinker coughs. “And given what time of year it is, this would have to be a Buttered Chess-Piece. Traditional exchange amongst players in the Game. Shall I take it you’re a spy of some description?”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, the Innocent Spy. At your service.”

“Not that Innocent Spy?” the Rat asks, with a quivering incredulity about its whiskers. “The one who helped end the Pigmote civil war?”

“Well, you have to understand it wasn’t just me. Had some help from a zee-captain.”

“The one who defeated the Boastful Escaper, with a set of locks so intricate he couldn’t undo them after a whole week of struggling?”

“Yup. That one was me.”

“The one who built the sphinxstone boat, to sail across the Underzee?”

The Innocent rolls his eyes. “How did that rumour even get started? No I didn’t, and nobody else did either, because the stuff’s absorbent. You’d sink before getting out of dock.”

“I see. Apologies. My fascination blinded me to the obvious structural failures.”

“I did make a boat out of a water-lily once, though…”

The Sensible Bookworm smiles to herself as the two engineers start talking some serious shop. It’ll be good for her uncle to have someone technical to discuss inventions with. Now they’re so cut off from their Surface friends, both of them are having to rebuild their lives from scratch. 

But they’ve each done it before. They’ll manage. 

The Pink-Painted Cat jumps on her lap. “I suppose that I shall have to agree not to eat it, if I’m staying.”

“I won’t forbid you. I’ll just point out that there’s a Scuttering Squad hanging around the place who wouldn’t take it in very good part.”

“A whole squad of those frightful rats? How’s any cat to survive amongst their company?”

“The same way everyone else does. Be polite, don’t eat anybody who asks you not to, and I promise I’ll feed you cavern-tuna and pet you every evening. Are we good?”

“Indeed,” the Cat says solemnly, and begins to purr. 

When she closes her eyes, it’s almost like being back home again.


	5. A shilling's worth of love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While the Innocent's away, the Bookworm has a Touching Love Story. 
> 
> Or a romantic notion, anyway.

“Maybe I shouldn’t go,” the Innocent Spy says worriedly, for the twelfth time that morning. 

“So throw it over,” the Unrepentant Smuggler calls from the kitchen. He’s been cleaning up in there with a most unaccustomed zeal. Plans, apparently. Exactly what the unspecified Plans entail is one of the things that’s been worrying the Spy. “Go or stay, whatever, but stop dithering already.”

“He’s got a point, Unc,” the Sensible Bookworm agrees, working away at a particularly intricate passage of embroidery. “Though if it comes to it, why don’t we come along too?”

“Maybe some other time, but not this trip. The _Clipper’s_ bound for the Mutton Island festival and I don’t want you anywhere near that. A whole island full of Seekers celebrating, you’d have to be an idiot to go there right now.”

“And why are we being an idiot again?” Jack inquires as he comes in. “Do you have a whetting-stone anywhere?”

“Under the sink, I think. Because I’m a loyal idiot, and I’d like to make sure they all get out of the place alive this time. My former shipmates aren’t exactly the nicest lot of people,” the Spy says, with a glance at the Bookworm. “But after a year of us saving each other’s lives all the time, I owe them. And they owe me a couple favours, too. If anything happened to me, it’s not like there’s a Phoenix Foundation here to look after you.”

“C’mon. You know I’d keep my chin up.” 

“Well. Look after Jack, in that case.”

“I resemble that remark,” the Smuggler says. “Get on with it, Mac. Go have your wild Seeking party, we’ll be here when you get back. I’ll look after your niece with perfect diligence. Promise.”

“All right. But no getting into trouble, you two. No fighting duels, don’t go into my private workshop without protective goggles, stay away from honey. Try and be sensible. Or as much as the Neath will allow.“ He picks up the Gladstone bag and almost makes it to the door before stopping again. “Becky, you won’t forget to wine the plant, right?”

“I know, I know. Two bottles every other day. We’ll be fine.”

“Okay. You better be.” 

Fond as they both are of the Innocent Spy, it’s a distinct relief when the bang of the downstairs door announces he’s finally left. 

“Funny sense of priorities,” the Smuggler observes, scraping a kifer along a blue whetstone. “If I was an innocent leaving a lovely young niece, I might have told her very particularly not to fall in love. This is London, after all. City of romantic literature! Love stories! Affairs de coeur, and all that.”

The Sensible Bookworm rolls her eyes. “Please don’t tell me. That charming jewel-thief you introduced us to last week has a crush on me or something?”

“Of course not. He’s in the market for a good dowry, not a relationship.” The Smuggler pulls a pamphlet out of his pocket and tosses it on the table. Expensive-looking, glossy ink on real rag-paper. “Nah, I just figured that since Mac’s away, this might be a good time for you to do a couple of things that it might get embarrassing to chat about with him. Like conducting a notable love affair, for instance.”

“Eh.” Her embroidery is coming on nicely - a nice plummy purple backdrop, with a motif of sunbursts round the edging. She’ll have to pick an awfully good subject for the centre. “And why do I want to do that again?”

“Maybe you don’t. Mac hasn’t, as far as I know, and it doesn’t stop him from going where he wants. But here’s the thing,” the Smuggler says, looking surprisingly serious. “If you haven’t noticed yet, your uncle’s a genius.”

She resists the impluse to say: duh. “Sure.”

“But we’re not. Geniuses can maybe do whatever they like down here, but there’s a lot of rules for everybody else. And the rules say that if you want to be anybody worth knowing, you have to have a love affair interesting enough to make the papers. Trust me, you want to be certified posy as soon as possible. How else will you ever get your very own gang of hoodlums?”

The Bookworm frowns: she’s pricked herself with her own needle. “I think Unc would say you’re being ridiculous. I think I’ll say you’re being ridiculous.”

Jack shrugs. “Just something to think about, okay? And have a look at that pamphlet sometime.”

**********************

_The Cautious Guardians' Society for Estimable Young Persons_

_To all readers with youngsters at home:_

_Do you want to see YOUR gently reared children consorting with Rubbery Men?_

_What would you do, if it was YOUR darling in the embrace of a honey-smuggler?_

_Could you bear it, if the scandalous debutante in Mr Huffam’s next edition was YOUR child?_

_And yet their love-lorn cries, pining for their first delicate blossoming of romance, are hardly to be denied with safety. Into this dark and vile atmosphere, comes the only satisfactory solution._

_The Society._

_The Society provides a safe, chaperoned environment for the tender nurturing of love. Here, you may rest assured, your children will meet only the most respectable partners, here they may enjoy supervised ardour in our well-appointed chambers…._

Speed-dating, basically. Jack’s given her a recommendation for Neath speed-dating. 

Figures. 

She’s not planning to go out - had been planning an all-day, uninterrupted read - but it’s sort of dozy and quiet with Mac gone and Jack locked in the kitchen (whatever he’s doing in there, she’s almost sure she doesn’t want to know). It’s not as if she promised not to go anywhere for a whole fortnight, right?

Plus, it turns out the Society is on the same street as the shop she favours for metallic threads. This latest project is coming out well enough to splurge on spun-silver. 

_Might as well give it a look, then. Since I’m here anyway._

The decor is terrible. Also expensive. Bright, well-trimmed candles galore - no sign of common gas anywhere in the building - fat wooden furniture with far too many baroque curls, rich plush carpets that must take some hard-working rats all night to clean. 

There’s also a sharp-eyed staffer who’s probably meant to keep out intruders. Only right now they’re preoccupied with another one. 

“What d’you mean, not respectable? I’ve these fancy clothes on, haven’t I?”

“Sir,” the Staffer informs him, with dignity, “If you have no one to vouch for you, you are not to be trusted amongst our clientele. Our charges are to be protected from the plausible, the felonious, and the sheer casanovas among Londoners, and I have no reason not to think you’re all three.”

“I just wanted to have a touching love story all my own,” the youth says, hanging his head. “Is that so much to ask?”

“Then I must firmly suggest you pursue your amorous interests in other quarters. Good day to you.”

As he’s escorted out, the youth nods his head at her just slightly, gives her a cheeky wink. She recognises him now: Jack’s protege, the Charming Thief. 

“And now that he’s attended to - may I help you, young lady?” The Staffer smiles most winningly. 

“Oh. Never mind. Just came in here on impulse.”

It’s also impulse that makes her go right out again. The Thief hasn’t gone far; he’s standing disconsolately outside, ignoring cries from busy passerby annoyed at his mid-pavement stance. 

“Love, or fortune?” he asks without turning around. 

“Idle curiosity. The Smuggler told you about this place too?”

“He certainly did. Although I was informed in no uncertain terms that you weren’t to be trusted.” 

“What, me?” the Bookworm asks, slightly bewildered. 

“Indeed. That you have a number of far-sighted cats who would espy my every movement, and an uncle who will flatten me for use as a doormat if I demonstrated any mercenary motives. Also that you haven’t been in the Neath long enough to have amusing valuables.”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s pretty much true. Accounting for Jack’s exaggerations.”

“And that a struggling young thief like myself might find those scintillating eyes of yours simply irresistible,” the Thief murmurs. He flourishes a pale, silken handkerchief. “Here. As a tribute to your beauty.”

“Did someone lose a handkerchief?” the Bookworm yells. Twee compliments are one thing, but pocketing someone else’s property for an impromptu present is going way too far.

Nobody responds, and the Thief looks most insulted. “This one happens to be mine.”

“Sorry.”

“I purloined it on a day-trip to the Shuttered Palace. The Traitor Empress will never miss one.”

“Oh, you did not steal this from Queen Victoria.”

Funny how they can stand chatting in the street talking about theft and nobody bats an eye, but the minute she says the Empress’s name everything stops. The very rats pause. Passerby cringe, colour, and look at her with one accord. Unpleasant. 

Maybe nothing would have come of it - looking back on it later, the Bookworm’s almost sure of that - but in that moment of wishing the ground would open up and swallow her, it’s a huge relief when the Thief takes her hand and hurries her up through a Flit getaway. 

**********************

Fungal ice creams at night, strolls along Ladybones Road observing the graffiti, the occasional play at Veilgarden. One very tender moment, when the Thief employs his second-story skills to leap up onto a gas lamp, where he scatters scented spores down over her hair. Even the hard-hearted driftweed sellers are impressed by that one. 

All very public, of course. As though they’re both performers, in a grand play with all London for a backdrop. 

She wonders how many other supposed romances in the Neath are this playfully banal, operate on timetables with neat notes and choreography for not-too-unchaste love scenes. Maybe this is why the Bazaar keeps having such rotten luck looking for love stories.

**********************

“I assume it’s going well,” the Smuggler says a week later, up to his elbows in a pig’s abdomen (turns out his special project was smoked bacon, a foodstuff that’s wildly unpopular in the Neath for some weird reason). “Given that I’ve had to do all my own casing - do you know how annoying it is to plan heists single-handedly? Very.”

“Hey, I took your advice and he did as well, so that’s on you,” the Bookworm murmurs, stitching away furiously. “Just a quick thing, so we can both make our names and move on. Did you know he used to be an Urchin? That’s starting from scratch with a vengeance, so I guess I don’t mind helping out in a good cause.”

“This isn’t a love story at all,” Jack says in disgust. “That’s gaming the system. Don’t you or Mac ever even think about a real romance? True commitment?“

The Sensible Bookworm takes a moment to think about this. Not a very long one. 

“No. We’ve got each other, isn’t that enough commitment for anyone?”

“Never put all your eggs in one basket. Did your uncle ever tell you what happened to me after Mike died, in that mountaineering accident?”

“Well, some of it. That you spent three weeks locked in a cabin upstate, and he just had to go up and help out before you did something stupid.” That’d been a long three days waiting for her uncle to come back, and he hadn’t cheered up again for quite a while. 

Jack takes a long, calming swig from a wine bottle (which gets thoroughly coated in pig blood in the process). “Uh-huh. Three weeks of blaming myself pretty hard, I can tell you. Not about her death, you understand, that was sheer accident. But that I was so wrapped up in this idea of myself as loveable ladies’ man Jack Dalton, fancy-free charmer, that I didn’t even notice when she was proposing. Because if I’d thought about it, really thought about what she was telling me, I would have realised and I would have said yes. So at least she’d have died happy.”

This is way too morbid for the Sensible one to have any sort of response for. “Um. That sounds pretty tough.”

“What I’m saying is, don’t get so caught up in your own idea of things that you wind up missing love when it’s banging your door down. Mac thinks of himself as a loner and he’ll probably never change, I’ll probably never change, but you’re still fresh. Don’t put yourself on the shelf too early, okay?“ He fishes a long, greasy extrusion of white fat from the pig’s guts. “Speaking of changing the subject, wanna try some raw bacon? Extra juicy!”

“No offense, but this seems like a good point to flee. In terror.”

“None taken.”

**********************

“Why can’t I steal you a lovely amethyst necklace, then?” the Thief asks. 

She is regretting telling him her birthday now. He’s settled on an unconventional way to celebrate it, and way too early to boot. 

“Because I won’t wear it! Not anything that’s stolen. Or bought with stolen funds, before you ask.”

“You won’t take honey with me, you won’t go stealing with me. You’re ever so conventional for a Surfacer.”

“Exiles have to try harder,” the Sensible one informs him. 

Maybe, maybe Jack’s got a point about keeping an eye out for love, but is this the one? 

Unbidden, the image of a childhood toy comes to mind. _Outlook not so good._

**********************

“Why can’t I sit on top of you?” the Bookworm asks, in honest puzzlement. It’s a cold night and a warm sofa. And they are supposed to be dating; there was a whole editorial about them this morning in the _The Back-Street Tatler_ this morning. 

Her Thief’s cheeks are aflame. “It isn’t decent. Touching is, is…for real lovers! Married people!”

Sometimes she forgets it’s still Victorian times, underneath all the wacky science and space-crabs. “What, you mean no one’s ever greeted you with a hug, or patted you on the back, or anything? Even your best friends?”

“Certainly not. How very improper.”

She whistles. “Huh. Back in California, we used to cuddle all the time. With my friends, and family, nobody ever minded - I mean, it's affectionate, I like a nice snuggle. How are you supposed to know you don’t like it if you don’t try it?”

He’s still blushing. “What a strange place the Surface must be. But I- if you don’t mind, may we please refrain?”

“Of course. If you don’t want to, we won’t.” 

“Do you want me to go away?” the Smuggler asks, looking up from his ham sandwich and the racing results. “Hate to think I was inhibiting anything over here.”

“That would defeat the entire purpose of having a chaperon, sir,” the Thief says humbly. “Which is why I asked you to remain in the first place.”

Yeah. Definitely not boyfriend material.

**********************

Besides which, the masterplan’s now succeeded; they’ve each persuaded a little more of London that they’re fascinating young charmers. Good enough for them to get on with their lives. Hurrah. 

He gives her a mushroom bouquet upon their parting, the traditional romantic signifier. That’ll make a nice lunch tomorrow. (Londoners are such very practical people.)

She gives him an embroidered handkerchief, with a diamond picked out in silver thread. 

“I was going to add a cow, for scale, but I didn’t have time.”

“No matter. I shall treasure it always.”

There’s a tear in his eye as he says it. Sensible or no, she almost believes him. 

Actually she does believe him, right up until finding it for sale in the local pawnshop next morning. So much for romance. She buys it right back; it’ll make a good Neathmas present for light-fingered Jack. 

At least it was nice of him to leave it where she’d find it again. 

**********************

“So how was the festival?” the Bookworm says the next day, as she and the Innocent Spy wend their way home from Wolfstack. “Anything interesting?”

“Not really,” the Innocent says, flagging down an Urchin for a penny’s worth of newsprint. “Lots of fishing. I caught a crab that demolished someone’s house while we were reeling it in. It's okay though, they’re living in the crab shell now. Also, what’s this?”

There’s a picture of her. And the Charming Thief, on the front cover of the paper. With the glaring headline _Beautiful Surface Heiress throws over Young Offender?_

“Uh, Beck? Did anything happen while I was away?”

Oh boy. 

This’ll be interesting. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place before chapter two, since Becky's not a posy yet. Eventually I'll put all these story segments in order, honest. 
> 
> I've borrowed a newspaper name from the Failbetter forum list. It sounded right. 
> 
> Experienced MacGyver fans will have observed that I've also nicked the backstory from "The Widowmaker" and reassigned it to Jack. In a continuity where he's dating Nikki seriously and has a niece to stop him spending a month hiding in a cabin, it comes out working pretty well for the Smuggler.
> 
> Storywise, that is, not in any other respect.


	6. on the perils of dealing with fiction-plane parallels

"I had a companion like you once," the Nameless Doctor tells her, as they hurriedly duck down a Ladybones mews. "An 'eighties teenager, with a knapsack full of useful gadgets..."

The Sensible Bookworm wrinkles her nose. "What was her name, Ace? No, I'm not like her at all. I mean, I actually liked my family. Like."

"How would you know about that?"

"I...I'm a time traveller?" Okay, she's not supposed to mention that under any circumstances - but it's the Doctor! The Spy'll understand. 

"That explains your vowels and state of dental repair. Not, however, how you came to know of my companion."

"Okay then. I used to watch you on television."

The Doctor huffs. "That explains nothing! That's the opposite of an explanation - an antixplanation? A planation?"

"A confuddlement?" she suggests, throwing another silken pheremone packet over her shoulder. It hits the last of the shambling zee-monsters they've been running away from; the creature sniffs in the scent of lilacs and fried grease, snuffles in a reminescent fashion, and begins waddling back home towards the river. 

"And just like her, you're excellent at chemistry. Well done."

"Aw, my uncle taught me a couple of tricks, that's all."

"A bit more than that," the Innocent Spy says proudly. "Been looking everywhere for you. All well?"

"Better then well," the Bookworm says with glee. "I bet you two know each other! Unc, he's on television! I mean, actually from a tv show. Someone we really like. Go on, guess." 

The Spy frowns. "Can't say I recognise him....no, wait, you're the guy who plays the villain in, um, that adaptation of 'The Secret Agent?' Should I be keeping an eye on Greenwich Observatory now?"

The Doctor snaps his fingers. "I know you! Back in the '70s, I rigged up a feed so that a CIA agent could watch his favourite soap opera. You were that drunk drug addict with the gun, right?"

Pause.

"Ah, my carefree UNIT days. Everyone was pointing and laughing at this silly American show."

The Bookworm rests her head in her hands. _“Seriously?”_


End file.
